


How Things End

by soitgoes



Series: Rigor-Mortis [1]
Category: Being Human (UK)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:10:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soitgoes/pseuds/soitgoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Just you, me and all your boxes of tea." In the end it's just Hal and Annie, a dark planet orbiting an unwilling sun. Dark AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Things End

Hal knocked first even though he knew very well that there was no need to do so. He had the key to the double bolted door and he had had said key for nearly three years. There was no need to knock but he did so out of habit and repsect.

"Annie," he said as he unlocked the door, "I brought something for you."

The walls were covered in strange symbols. Hal did not know the exact meanings of them but he had a vague idea. Mr. Snow knew what they meant. Mr. Snow had been the one to put them up.

Hal didn't really like Mr. Snow. In fact Mr. Snow scared Hal in the way the boogeyman scared small children. He hadn't told anyone this secret, save for one gray ghost. It was that same small gray ghost that had to bear the weight of all his dirty little secrets. He shared all of them with her whether she liked it or not.

"Annie," Hal called into the small square room, "I brought you tea."

She had her back to him and was seated on a wooden chair. She was all dressed in gray, she had been for 11 years. It was the color of her death. The little gray ghost did not move when she heard Hal call to her. She didn't even blink.

"I know it isn't much," Hal said looking at the box of Earl Grey, "but I've been very busy lately. There is so much to do, Annie."

The symbols were from an ancient language even older than the language the prophecy was written in. Mr. Snow had called it Enochian and it was Enochian letters and words that lined the room keeping the ghost trapped within its walls. The sacred language was painted in crisp white on the walls and was also carved into the floors of the room.

"It's only Earl Grey I'm afraid," Hal said walking towards her with the light blue box in hand, "I know how you like your variety. Black tea, Green tea, herbal teas, Strawberry kiwi, but this was all I could come up with on such short notice."

The ghost perked up at the mention of Strawberry Kiwi and Hal noticed. He always noticed when the ghost responded. It was really all he cared anymore. Not the vampire agenda or world domination, all Hal cared about was how much of a reaction he could coax out a of small gray ghost.

"I should be around more now," he said as he placed the box down on a shelf situated against the wall, "We just finished shutting down a rebel group's camp that has been giving us trouble."

The ghost perked up even more at the mention of "rebel group". She had been waiting for news about the rebel groups but no one ever came to visit her except for Hal and Mr. Snow. And Mr. Snow only ever came to ask her about her "abilities" which she had none at least that's what she had told the old vampire. He didn't believe her. Hal only came to tell her horrible secrets and sickening stories about his life abroad and to bring her tea of course.

"I know what you're thinking," Hal said taking a place beside her at the only window which existed in the room. It looked out onto the bleak world below, "you're thinking about Tom and whether or not we've found him yet or little Eve."

There was a tension filled moment as Annie waited for him to give her the news. Hal knew, he just knew she spent every moment of the last few years waiting for them to come save her. Hal knew that she thought about them every single moment and never spared a second for him. It wasn't that he was jealous except for the fact that he was. Hal was very very jealous.

"I'm sure you'll be quite pleased to know we haven't found them yet," Hal said in a clipped and quick tone breaking the tension of the moment but not the tension which had built up over the last three years, "which means we haven't killed them yet."

Had Tom ever brought her tea? Would Eve had even bothered to send her postcards from every single city he had been to? The answer was no. Damn right they wouldn't have done that for her. No one took better care of Annie than Hal did.

There was silence between them. Hal continued to look out onto the gray city below and Annie thought about her little girl and Tom and how much she wanted to see them. How much she missed them.

"Annie," Hal said, "don't you want to look at what I brought you?"

He looked down at her. Her curls had gone limp and lifeless and her clothing, a reflection of the state of her soul, was heavy and cloak like. She was all wrapped up in herself and Hal could tell she would not be coaxed out of her shell by anyone, especially not the likes of him.

"I brought you tea," he said desperately trying to get anything out of her, "see I've put it there on the shelf besides the rest."

Sure enough on the shelf, besides the light blue box of Earl Grey, was a whole assortment of things, not just tea. There was tea of course, Strawberry Kiwi, Green, Jasimine, Chai, White, Oolong, Blended, herbal, all of them brought to her by Hal. All of them neglected and ignored. There was also an array of postcards with pictures of all of the different places, China, France, Germany, New Zealand, that Hal had been to spreading death and destruction. Among the boxes of tea and postcards were trinkets that Hal had picked up here and there for her and one lone picture. It was of two people, a man in glasses and a blonde woman with their arms swung over each other's shoulders. But what was strange about the picture was the way they stuck their other arms out, up and over as though either of them were holding another person close.

"Why am I here?" the ghost finally said, asking the question that had racked her brain for years, "why am I still here, Hal?"

Hal didn't respond at first. He was too shocked that she had even spoken. It had been nearly a year since she had said a word to him.

"If I can't help Tom, if I can't take care of Eve," she said, "then why am I still here?"

She knew technically why she was still there. It was those damned symbols. They held some kind of magick that she couldn't break no matter how hard she tried. She had scrubbed at them non-stop for the first few weeks she had been placed in that room but all that resulted in were raw hands and a broken spirit. After her attempts at freedom the other vampire, the one with the horrible teeth, had informed her that the symbols ran all throughout the foundation of the whole building. There was no use trying to break the one's painted on the wall.

Annie knew why the other Old Ones wanted her around. Every so often Mr. Snow would pop in and ask her how she was doing and observe her. They were trying to see just how strong she was, they wanted to know what she could do. But Annie would not show them anything and she knew everyday they were losing interest because Snow came around less and less but not Hal. Hal always came to see her.

"If I'm not fighting in the war, if I'm not helping the people fighting then what am I here for?" she said looking up at him.

Hal was the definition of sharp. He wore a dark tailored three-piece suit with off-white pinstripes, on his feet were shiny black winkle pickers. His dark hair was slicked back making him look smart and dangerous. His face was clear and fresh. Hal looked the part of poster-boy.

"You're here because I want you to be here," Hal answered matter-of-factly, "you're here because I want you."

He crouched down beside her and placed his hands in her lap. He looked at his pale lifeless hands besides her own dark dead ones, brown and white. Then he got down all together on his knees and put his head on her thighs.

Annie felt cold to him. She hadn't felt cold before back when he had first felt her at Honolulu Heights. Back when he was still sober. The B&B had since been burnt to the ground and both Annie and Hal had mourned for their former home in his and her own individual way. But now Annie felt very cold and Hal felt like fire on Annie's skin. It was all of that borrowed blood.

"Oh Annie," Hal said his face in her stomach and his arms around her waist, "I still think about those days, those glorious days we all, Tom, Eve, you and I, spent in that little bed and breakfast. I wonder at how simple life had been before this war began. I marvel at how little we worried compared to how much we should have worried."

"We were too busy trying to be normal," Hal said burying his face into the soft gray of her stomach, "we were too busy trying to be human."

They stayed like that for a while. Annie looked out the window again losing herself in memories of a pink house, Bristol and three people she was certain she'd never see again. Hal was all tangled up in the dead girl thinking about children crying in death camps and werewolves with silly accents.

"I can't let you go, Annie," Hal said his fingers digging into her sides, "you know that don't you? I won't ever let you leave me. You can't ever go away, not to your friends on the other side and not to Tom and Eve. I won't ever let you go."

That was a promise. It was a guarantee not only because Annie was quite certain that she no longer had a door but because she knew that Tom and Eve were dead. They had been for a very long time. Mr. Snow had brought their heads to her as proof. Hal had spent nearly two days trying to figure out what was wrong with her before giving up and throwing a tantrum that ended in the deaths of hundreds. She couldn't tell if he didn't actually know or if he was just in denial.

"It's just you and me, Annie," he said his arms tightening their hold around her middle.

Hal was amazed at how much it felt like he was hugging air.

"Just you, me and all your boxes of tea."

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a one-shot however it does have a sequel, All Her Boxes of Tea, and that will have a sequel.


End file.
